Thursday, January 22, 2026
Heads up SCOTUS
A federal court ruled Thursday that Virginia’s lifetime voting ban for people with certain felony convictions violates federal law — a landmark decision that could restore voting rights to hundreds of thousands of Virginians, especially Black residents long targeted by the ban.
U.S. District Court Judge John Gibney, appointed by former President Barack Obama, ruled that Virginia’s constitution unlawfully strips voting rights far beyond what Congress allowed when it readmitted the state to the Union after the Civil War.
Democracy Docket
Supreme Court and the Federal Reserve
They're not all that smart if they couldn't see this coming.
Continue readingThe end of Federal Reserve independence would reset the global financial order, tank retirement accounts, and give the White House vast new powers. After a two-hour hearing, the answer seems to be that the court will craft some carveout to protect Fed independence, but how robust and meaningful it will be remains to be seen.
Mther Jones
Jack Smith testifies (again)
Also, and this is obviously not a deterrent, it's illegal.In his first public testimony, former special counsel Jack Smith warned that President Donald Trump’s targeted attacks against civil servants in the Department of Justice pose a grave threat to the rule of law.
[...]
Thursday’s hearing represented a reversal for the House Judiciary Committee’s Republican Chairman Jim Jordan (Ohio).
Previously, Jordan had denied Smith’s request to speak publicly about the Trump investigations and instead ordered a closed-door hearing, which took place in December.
[...]
“The rule of law is not self-executing,” Smith said. “It depends on our collective commitment to apply it.”
[...]
Trump is threatening the primacy of law in the United States by attacking civil servants previously assigned to probes against him.
[...]
Smith issued the warning while testifying on the two criminal investigations he led into Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and the president’s mishandling of classified documents after his first term.
[...]
Smith defended his team’s work and said the Trump administration’s retaliatory actions constituted an assault on independent law enforcement.
“President Trump has sought to seek revenge against career prosecutors, FBI agents and support staff for having worked on these cases,” Smith said. “To vilify and seek retribution against these people is wrong. Those dedicated public servants are the best of us.”
Democracy Docket
In August, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), an agency that oversees the conduct of federal employees, publicly confirmed it was investigating Smith over allegations he engaged in unlawful political activity by bringing criminal charges against Trump.
The probe, the status of which is unclear, was highly unusual for the OSC, which is meant to operate in a non-partisan manner independent of the White House. However, several months earlier, Trump fired the previous OSC leader and installed loyalists to lead the office.
[...]
Thursday’s hearing marks the first time Smith has testified publicly about the two investigations into Trump.
[...]
During the hearing, Trump called Smith “a deranged animal” in a post on social media and said that he hoped that Attorney General Pam Bondi was “looking at what he’s done.”
[...]
Since his return to the White House, Trump has repeatedly and publicly attacked Smith and has called for his arrest.
[...]
Asked about Trump’s personal attacks, Smith said he believed they were meant to intimidate him and others who “stand up.”
“I’m not going to be intimidated,” he said. “We did our work pursuant to department policy. We followed the facts. We followed the law. And that process resulted in proof beyond a reasonable doubt that [Trump] committed serious crimes. And I’m not going to pretend that didn’t happen because he’s threatening me.”
UPDATE 02:22 pm:
Former D.C. Metropolitan Police officer Michael Fanone repeatedly told far-right operative Ivan Raiklin "go f*ck yourself" at the hearing, where the two were both in attendance as audience members.
"You're a traitor to this f*cking country," Fanone also told Raiklin, getting close enough that two of his former law enforcement colleagues had to restrain him.
The altercation occurred during a recess in the Judiciary Committee's hearing, with Raiklin starting off the interaction by trying to shake Fanone's hand.
Fanone repeatedly cursed at Raiklin and told him not to "pretend" that they are on good terms, Raiklin responded, "Why do you have to lose your cool like that?"
"This guy has threatened my family, threatened my children. Threatened to rape my children ... you sick bastard," Fanone told Raiklin as people gathered around the two men.
"F*cking do something," Fanone dared Raiklin. "Do something."
[...]
The ex-MPD officer said [that during the insurection on January 6, 2021,] he was "grabbed, beaten, tased, all while being called a traitor to my country."
Raiklin, for his part, was a key figure in pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence to try to overturn the 2020 election results and has continued to propagate conspiracy theories about the election.
Fanone's fellow Capitol Police veterans, Jared Dunn and Aquilino Gonell, quickly rushed to hold Fanone back and de-escalate the situation, with Dunn telling Fanone repeatedly, "Let's take a seat."
Judiciary chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) then banged his gavel and called the hearing to order, with ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) thanking Fanone and Democrats applauding the former officer.
Axios
Trump at Davos, 2026 version
Apparently, Trump was completely bonkers, dismissive of Scandinavian countries, and insulting of our allies. And they noticed.
CanadianPrime Minister Mark Carney didn't mince words.
He's literally rotten.
UPDATE 02:34 pm:
It's possible. Old people skin does that. But what are the excuses for the previous times photographs have shown bruises on his left hand?
CanadianPrime Minister Mark Carney didn't mince words.
Continue reading.Today I will talk about a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.
On the other hand, I would like to tell you that the other countries, especially intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states.
[...]
Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.
[...]
It seems that every day we're reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.
And this aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable, as the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself.
And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety.
Well, it won't.
So, what are our options?
World Economic Forum
He talks about the fiction of the system we have been living in for decades. It's very good.
He also lays out what Canada has been doing in light of the rupture created by Trump:
And, what was Trump saying?
He also lays out what Canada has been doing in light of the rupture created by Trump:
We have agreed a comprehensive strategic partnership with the EU, including joining SAFE, the European defence procurement arrangements. We have signed 12 other trade and security deals on four continents in six months. The past few days, we've concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar. We're negotiating free trade pacts with India, ASEAN, Thailand, Philippines and Mercosur.
We're doing something else. To help solve global problems, we're pursuing variable geometry, in other words, different coalitions for different issues based on common values and interests. So, on Ukraine, we're a core member of the Coalition of the Willing and one of the largest per capita contributors to its defence and security.
On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark, and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland's future.
Our commitment to NATO's Article 5 is unwavering, so we're working with our NATO allies, including the Nordic Baltic Gate, to further secure the alliance's northern and western flanks, including through Canada's unprecedented investments in over-the-horizon radar, in submarines, in aircraft and boots on the ground, boots on the ice.
[...]
On plurilateral trade, we're championing efforts to build a bridge between the Trans Pacific Partnership and the European Union, which would create a new trading bloc of 1.5 billion people. On critical minerals, we're forming buyers’ clubs anchored in the G7 so the world can diversify away from concentrated supply. And on AI, we're cooperating with like-minded democracies to ensure that we won't ultimately be forced to choose between hegemons and hyper-scalers.
This is not naive multilateralism, nor is it relying on their institutions. It's building coalitions that work – issues by issue, with partners who share enough common ground to act together.
[...]
This is not sovereignty. It's the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination. In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice – compete with each other for favour, or to combine to create a third path with impact.
[...]
We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn't mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy, but we believe that from the fracture, we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just. This is the task of the middle powers, the countries that have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and most to gain from genuine cooperation.
The powerful have their power.
But we have something too – the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home and to act together.
That is Canada's path. We choose it openly and confidently, and it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us.
The world is experiencing a shift away from rules and international law, French President Emmanuel Macron told the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday.
"It's ... a shift towards a world without rules, where international law is trampled underfoot and where the only law that seems to matter is that of the strongest," Macron said, adding that what he called "imperial ambitions" were resurfacing.
Reuters
And, what was Trump saying?
[...]
In the midst of an active campaign to burn down the Western world order by forcibly annexing territory from a NATO ally, the rogue president of the rogue United States of America ranted incoherently for some 90 minutes about windmills, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, and an apparent daddy fetish.
He confused Greenland with Iceland not once, not twice, but three times.
[...]
The mad, delusional, ranting emperor has no clothes on. And yet there is no truth-telling child in sight. Just a coterie of shameless liars, grifters, and sycophants bent on engaging in a cover-up about the clear mental incompetence of the most powerful man on Earth.
Zeteo
You can only use the same vein so long before you have to give it a rest.
And what did he "get" after making a "deal"? Nothing.Donald Trump sounded like a fascist dictator suffering from a brain bleed during his speech yesterday at Davos. It was a national embarrassment even by the lowly standards of modern American politics.
[...]
Trump’s screed was chillingly aggressive. He began the Greenland part of it with a thinly veiled threat against NATO, claiming his recent coup in Venezuela proves his regime is a “much greater power than people even understand.” He contrasted his purported strength with European weakness.
“We saw this in World War 2 when Denmark fell to Germany after just six hours of fighting and was totally unable to defend either itself of Greenland,” Trump said to total silence, adding that “without us, right now you'd all be speaking German and a little Japanese.” (German is in fact an official language of Switzerland.)
[...]
Trump then channeled Hitler during the Sudetenland crisis, demanding “immediate negotiations to discuss the acquisition of Greenland by the United States" — or else.
“We probably won't get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, where we would be frankly unstoppable. But I won't do that. Okay?"
Public Notice
Trump shortly after his speech pulled a TACO, posting on Truth Social about a vague “framework of a future deal” involving NATO and Greenland. But during a subsequent interview with CNBC, Trump was unwilling and/or unable to provide any details, instead characterizing the framework (which sure sounds like the status quo) as “a concept of a deal.”
Alas, NATO Secretary Mark Rutte confirmed later on Fox News that the status of Greenland wasn’t even discussed as part of Trump’s “framework.” The “deal” appears to be about as meaningful as a degree from Trump University.
In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s speech, cable coverage seized upon his “I won’t do that” comment as evidence he’s taken armed aggression against NATO off the table. But of course he also ruled out strikes within Venezuela until shortly before he launched them.
[...]
That Trump backed down hours after his Davos speech is a promising sign that financial markets and diplomatic pressure (not to mention the grassroots organizing that’s taking place in the occupied Twin Cities) can still provide something of a check on his desire to carve up the world between strongmen like himself, Putin, and President Xi. But one year in, he and his regime are getting worse.
[...]
One day after Prime Minster Carney delivered a historic speech at Davos [...] Trump huffed that Carney “wasn’t so grateful” for all America has done for his country and said, “Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, next time you make your statements.”
[...]
He made up that “we have new steel plants being built all over the country,” claimed that “I haven’t been able to find any wind farms in China” (the country in fact operates some of the largest ones in the world), and vowed that there will soon be prosecutions over his 2020 election loss, which he delusionally claimed was “rigged. Everybody now knows that. They found out.”
He's literally rotten.
UPDATE 02:34 pm:
It's possible. Old people skin does that. But what are the excuses for the previous times photographs have shown bruises on his left hand?
Wednesday, January 21, 2026
Greenland isn't necessary any more apparently
JFC.The Greenland framework President Trump and NATO Secretary General Marc Rutte discussed on Wednesday includes the principle of respecting Denmark's sovereignty over the island, according to two sources briefed on the proposal.
Trump stated numerous times, including earlier on Wednesday, that he'd only take a deal that put Greenland under U.S. control. The deal proposed by Rutte — which Trump said "gives us everything we needed" — doesn't do that.
[...]
Trump announced he would not follow through on his threat to impose tariffs on eight European allies on Feb. 1 for opposing his claim to Greenland. And he signaled that if a deal was reached on the terms he and Rutte discussed, the entire Greenland crisis would be over.
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Asked by reporters later whether Greenland would be part of the U.S., Trump dodged, saying: "It is the ultimate long-term deal. It's an infinite deal. It is a deal forever."
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Rutte said the proposal involved all of NATO and in particular the "seven Arctic allies" doing more to protect the Arctic region.
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Stunningly, Rutte claimed in a Fox News interview that the question of who would control Greenland "did not come up" in the meeting.
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The plan includes updating the 1951 "Greenland Defense Agreement" between the U.S. and Denmark, which allowed the U.S. to build military bases in the island and establish "defense areas" if NATO believed it necessary.
It also includes sections on increasing security in Greenland and NATO activity in the Arctic, as well as additional work on raw materials, the sources said.
The proposal also includes language on positioning "Golden Dome" in Greenland and on countering "malign outside influence" by Russia and China.
[...]
The ideas raised by Rutte echo the Danish proposal that has long been on the table: Denmark retains sovereignty, but the U.S. is able to increase its military presence.
[...]
"President Trump is proving once again he's the Dealmaker in Chief. As details are finalized by all parties involved, they will be released accordingly," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Axios.
Axios
Ealier...
JFC.
Vicious and evil
Sadly, not a new tactic among petty tyrant types who take these jobs because - as Dropkick Murphys say, they're too scared to join the military and too dumb to be a cop.
And absolutely heinous...
Time to close schools and go to COVID-era education in Minnesota.
UPDATE 02:42 pm:
R.I.P. America and NATO
Trump in Davos is an international embarrassment.
“To me, a town looks better when you have military people [on the streets].”
That was but one of the many, many 5-alarm fire-worthy statements the former leader of the free world slurred before a packed scrum of reporters at a White House press briefing yesterday afternoon, mere hours after he terminated the Western world order.
I mean that quite literally.
“So at what point are we going to realize the enemy is within 🤬,” read a social media post promoted by Donald Trump, “China and Russia are the boogeymen when the real threat is… NATO…”
Regardless of whatever intention the commander in chief may have had, regardless of how earnestly he believes what he reposted, the planet responded appropriately. Western leaders, oh-so conveniently gathered in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual World Economic Forum, all but excommunicated the US from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a military alliance that lasted nearly eight decades.
“I will talk today about the breaking of the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction, and the beginning of a brutal reality where the geopolitics of the great powers is not subject to any constraint,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told the crowd of dignitaries.
“Every day we are reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry. That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”
“Let me be direct,” he pronounced, “we are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.”
“We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn’t mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy.”
[...]
The Bad Orange Man has, at the very least, for a few generations, removed us from the West.
Zeteo
Tuesday, January 20, 2026
What can you do?
How can you stop it?
Resistance
I hope they're going to stand on a protest line somewhere instead of just staying home. Maybe like these Philadelphians...
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